POST-WAR WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 4

POST-WAR WORLD

PROBLEMS LOOMING UP

OPINIONS IN BRITAIN

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyriflht.) (Special Correspondent.) (Rec. 9.50 a.m.) LONDON, June 8. Underneath Britain's war effort there are stirrings political and industrial and thoughts of post-war reconstruction. There is considerable interest in speeches by Mr. Anthony Eden, Sir Stafford Cripps, Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, and particularly in those by Vice-President Henry Wallace, Miss Frances Perkins, U.S. Secretary of Labour, ana Mr. J. G. Winant, American Ambassador in London. The Americans' speeches are actually more warmly welcomed. It is felt that they make a greater appeal to the common humanity of the common people.

The "Manchester Guardian" says: "Mr. Wallace and Mr. Winant have charged the words 'the people's war' with new meaning. It is a war for democracy with a concrete social purpose—the uplifting of the common man."

These speeches, coupled with the coal dispute, the debate in the House of Lords on the post-war world, and also the reports of the Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of British Industries, have tended to focus greater attention on post-war problems, reinforced by the rather brighter war outlook for the Allies. The coal settlement has been received with mixed feelings, comments ranging from toe "Observer's" "reasonably good" to the "Daily Herald's" "received without enthusiasm." It has been observed that a battle for political power is raging round the coal industry. One of the reasons for this is that Labour aims at nationalisation of the coal industry-

There have consequently ensued discussions regarding vested interests, which, in the opinion of delegates to the recent Labour conference, have far too great a hold on Britain's policy. Thus, the "New Statesman and Nation" regards the coal settlement as "a very unsatisfactory compromise." "It is another reminder," it says "that the substance and power of Britain still belong to the great vested interests which are defended" by the majority oi members of the House of Commons. During the war not a single key of power has been surrendered by monopoly capitalism or the 1922 Committee of the Conservative Party. Coal is a test.case." It adds that the most serious defect in the whole coal reorganisation scheme from the point of view of war efficiency is that the owners will continue to assume that the mines will revert to their hands after the war, while the miners rightly continue to protest against working for the private profit of the coal owners.

SOCIALISATION v. VESTED INTERESTS.

Thus not the least important aspect of the coal dispute is that it shows deep differences of opinion in the opposing political camps, which are indicators of the possible trend of British post-war domestic politics when socialisation versus vested interests may be one of the most burning. The reports of the Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of British Industries have also had a mixed reception, one view being that they are because they show a longing to look forward, but are depressing because they indicate inability to look any way but backward. The "Economist" says: "There is the paradox on the one hand that the documents make a notable plea for freedom and expansion, and that on the other hand they paint a picture of control, restraint,, and restriction both at home: and abroad, each being a picture of national industrial autarchy, and self-rule by vested interests." It adds that these business men seem to have lost hope and thrown up the sponge; they see world economy running down. "One of the main conclusions arising from the proposals," it says, "is that British industry is afraid of the United States. Collaboration is called for, but in the Federation of British Industries report the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the freer trade movement which has found spokesmen in the United States are flatly repudiated."

POST-WAR SETTLEMENT FACTORS

The "Financial News," commenting on reconstruction, says: "It is now universally recognised that a sharp deterioration in Britain's balance of payments must be accepted as one of the basic data for any post-war settlement. The proposals cover a wide range. At the one extreme we have the Federation of British Industries, who would put international trade into a straitjacket of bilateralism; and at the other extreme Mr. Herbert Feis, of the United States State Department, would provide garments so flowing that countries would be prepared to ship goods abroad without thought of repayment. Common to both proposals is the tacit assumption that the conventional economic machinery cannot be relied on, suU that credit policy and exchange fluctuations cannot be depended on to regulate international exchanges of goods, nor the orthodox machinery of overseas investments to reculate international transfers of capital."